Susan Sarandon has joined forces with the nun she portrayed in ‘Dead Man Walking’ in a desperate eleventh-hour bid to rescue an indigent Oklahoma inmate scheduled to be put to death next month.
The two women have jointly launched a MoveOn-dot-org petition gaining momentum today, in hopes of obtaining a 60-day reprieve for 52-year-old Richard Glossip, so he can present recently discovered video evidence that a key witness’s testimony was coerced by prosecutors.
The condemned man has otherwise exhausted all his appeals in a 1997 capital murder case that saw him sentenced to die by lethal injection, but which he himself was never actually accused of committing.
The legal sleights-of-hand that stole nearly two decades of Glossip’s life already -- and gave the confessed killer a lighter sentence -- is not uncommon for impoverished defendants, Ms. Sarandon astutely points out in her petition email.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t atypical,” the actor/activist states. “When you have poor representation and a biased system, you end up with coerced testimony and concealed evidence.”
She and Sister Helen Prejean (the real life death row nun Sarandon portrayed in the acclaimed 1995 movie ‘Dead Man Walking’) are both passionate about getting Glossip the chance to finally prove his innocence, before it’s too late.
In that mission of mercy, they join an unlikely alliance of supporters from both sides of the death penalty debate in appealing to Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin to give Richard Glossip the mere 60 days his pro bono attorneys require to present new evidence.
“No one is asking for an exoneration yet, just a reprieve,” Susan Sarandon and Sister Helen urge in their signature drive this week. “It’s unfortunate that it’s come down to this point but it’s really important to give this man a second look.”
